World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons is available at most online retailers, along with other titles that you may find useful while developing addons, including the official reference material for the Lua programming language, written by one of the authors.

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World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons (second edition)

By James Whitehead II, Rick Roe

The #1 bestselling programming book is back with updated and expanded coverage of the newest release of WoW!
World of Warcraft (WoW) is currently the world's largest massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The newest release, "Wrath of the Lich King," has created a demand for updated information on writing addons. This eagerly anticipated edition answers that request and is an essential reference for creating WoW addons.
Written by a duo of authors who have each contributed a number of successful WoW addons, the book offers an overview of Lua and XML (the programming languages used to write addons) and includes coverage of specific pitfalls and common programming mistakes-and how to avoid them. Valuable examples show you detailed aspects of writing addons for WoW and demonstrate how to implement addon concepts such as variables, slash commands, secure templates, and more.

Although the major web retailers do not offer an electronic version of this book, there is an electronic version available that can be purchased from Scribd. As more electronic versions become available, I will list them here.

Programming in Lua

By Roberto Ierusalimschy

"Programming in Lua" is the official book about the language, giving a solid base for any programmer who wants to use Lua. Authored by Roberto Ierusalimschy, the chief architect of the language, it covers all aspects of Lua 5---from the basics to its API with C---explaining how to make good use of its features and giving numerous code examples. "Programming in Lua" is targeted at people with some programming background, but does not assume any prior knowledge about Lua or other scripting languages.

Lua 5.1 Reference Manual

by Roberto Ierusalimschy

This manual is the official definition of Lua 5.1. It covers Lua's syntax and semantics, the full API with C, and the standard libraries. Lua is an extension programming language designed to support general procedural programming with data description facilities. It also offers good support for object-oriented programming, functional programming, and data-driven programming. Lua is intended to be used as a powerful, light-weight scripting language for any program that needs one. Lua is implemented as a library, and is highly portable, being written in clean C (that is, in the common subset of ANSI C and C++). This printed version contains the full text of the eletronic version, available at http://www.lua.org/manual/.

This collection of articles record some of the existing wisdom and practice on how to program well in Lua. In well-written articles that go much beyond the brief informal exchange of tips in the mailing list or the wiki, the authors share their mastery of all aspects of Lua programming, elementary and advanced. The articles cover a wide spectrum of areas and approaches, with authors from both the industry and academia and titles about game programming, programming techniques, embedding and extending, algorithms and data structures, and design techniques.

Lua offers a wide range of features that you can use to support and enhance your applications. With this book as your guide, you’ll gain a thorough understanding of all aspects of programming with this powerful language. The authors present the fundamentals of programming, explain standard Lua functions, and explain how to take advantage of free Lua community resources. Complete code samples are integrated throughout the chapters to clearly demonstrate how to apply the information so that you can quickly write your own programs.

World of Warcraft Programming: A Guide and Reference for Creating WoW Addons

By James, II Whitehead, Bryan McLemore, Matthew Orlando

Programming World of Warcraft Addons is an all-in-one guide to writing addons for World of Warcraft, leading the reader through a tutorial on Lua programming, guiding them through several example addons, and providing them with a comprehensive reference for the World of Warcraft API. Readers should be familiar with the user interface of World of Warcraft, and may have some experience downloading and installing addons.

Hacking World of Warcraft

By Daniel Gilbert, James, II Whitehead

Get crafty! Veteran WoW player and creator of the most popular World of Warcraft add-on (Atlas) Dan Gilbert guides you through making your stay in the world of Azeroth more exciting. Whether you’re human, dwarf, elf, or orc, you’ll feast on numerous unique hacks such as combat, artwork and model, map, interface, loot, chat, raid, PvP, and more. You’ll also learn to create and use skins and themes, write your own macros, create add-ons, and work with frames and XML so that you can improve your experience with the hottest online game on the planet—planet Earth, that is.